Residential Tenancies and Valuation Bill 2020: Second Stage
Seanad Éireann — 2020-07-31
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Rónán Mullen (IND), National University of Ireland

Ba mhaith liom fáilte a chur roimh an Aire Stáit. I congratulate him on his appointment and wish him well in his brief.
I welcome this Bill. Tenants in Ireland have historically had far fewer rights than their counterparts on the Continent. This imbalance has been substantially addressed in recent years, and we should have no fear about continuing in that direction. This Bill places restrictions on property rights guaranteed under the Constitution. As such, the Oireachtas has a legal and moral duty to act responsibly but the measures in the Bill seem to be proportionate and in the public interest.
I was listening to Roddy Doyle speaking to Oliver Callan on the radio this morning. He was speaking in almost nostalgic terms about the accommodation that used to exist - people sharing bedsits, bathrooms and so on. It sounded to me as if he was being nostalgic about what were, in fact, terrible tips in which to live. We must acknowledge the fact that there is a great frustration for many people who cannot afford to be out of home, in a place of their own and able to enjoy the freedom, independence and human progress that involves. I wonder how far we are from imaginative solutions that look at quality high-rise accommodation in the city with the appropriate space and amenities. I am not a fan of the co-living model, although there may be potential for it. It should be possible to imagine new ways of providing accommodation while always keeping an eye on the importance of family life, the needs of children and so on.
As a person from rural Ireland, I would also like to see some kind of imaginative approach to getting people to move, if necessary, from urban areas to live in more rural towns throughout the country in order to try to revive them. I know there are employment and other issues in that regard but I would like to see serious and imaginative planning in that area.
It is not only because I take a small proportion of my income from a rental property that I want to mention that I do not like to see a general demonisation of landlords in the discourse that goes on. I followed the debate on this Bill in the Dáil and I was disappointed by the tone of many of the contributions. There are several categories of private landlord that one can think of, from large corporate landlords to buy-to-let investors. There are also others who own just one property which they may have inherited as a family property and rent out to supplement a small income. It is this last category of small landlords that I would like specifically to mention. Some of those landlords are old age pensioners who rely on small rental incomes from very modest properties to supplement their pensions. They are not profiteers or rack-renters. They already face significant pressure as a result of the measures introduced to protect tenants in recent years. Buy-to-let investors have been given some relief by the banks but there is no relief for landlords without mortgages.
I spoke to one such person recently who receives the basic old age pension and rents out a second property which they own, which yields an income of €140 a week. That is a modest rental income. The tenant has been laid off due to Covid-19 but the property owner has no desire to evict her and would have no objection to this legislation, although it would obviously expose them to serious financial hardship through loss of rental income. I wonder whether anything could be done, at a policy level, to provide relief to people in that kind of situation.
Tenants who have lost their jobs can apply for rent supplement and, later, housing assistance payment if they do not already qualify for it. We should be encouraging as many people as possible to do that. This would allow for rents to be paid, to some extent, assisting both tenants and smaller landlords. Threshold has been advising people accordingly. There are long delays in applications for those supports at present and it is important that the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection tries to process them as efficiently as possible.
Could we look at other ways of alleviating pressure on smaller landlords and old age pensioners? Property tax liability continues throughout the emergency period and many property owners pay it on a monthly basis. Could we examine the possibility of a very limited exemption from property tax in cases such as the one I have outlined? Could this be something that would apply to those whose only income, apart from rental income, would be the statutory pension? From representations I have received, it seems that there are enough people in such a situation to justify a scheme like that.
The Covid-19 situation should also be used to finally address the issue of short-term holiday lets, the so-called Airbnb effect. Before the pandemic, 5,000 entire homes in Dublin were being used for short-term lets. In 2017, the Joint Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government proposed a series of measures to address this, some of which were implemented in July of last year, but that there are concerns that they did not go far enough. Airbnb has its European headquarters in Dublin and has lobbied strongly against changes in this area. Surely the present lull in the tourist sector gives an opportunity to address this issue once and for all. This is a chance to rebalance the market away from short-term holiday lets and towards long-term residential leases.
I again welcome the Minister of State and wish him well. I also welcome this Bill because it is important that we protect people at this difficult time in our national life. I also call for imaginative solutions to our ongoing housing challenges. We must remember that there are many different types of stakeholder in our society, including small-time landlords who are dependent on modest rental incomes for a portion of the income that they need to survive.
I want to sincerely apologise for not using up my full allocation of time and I promise it will not happen again.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2020-07-31/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:48:31+00:00
Sitting date: 2020-07-31